The Longest Night
by emziwilson
Summary: December 21, the most dreaded night of all, the winter solstice. Buffy comes to Wolfram and Hart to warn Angel of an army of all evil said to come and destroy the world. The battle to end all. Rated for later chapters
1. The Visitor

How wonderful. My first Angel/Buffy fanfic. If you want to know what it's about, read the damn summary. I don't care if you don't like, but i would like to hear your thoughts. In easier to understand words: review if like, do nothing if no like. I shall continue even if no one likes. So deal.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Too bad, I could be bleeding rich. I shall cry over this new thought as you read.

* * *

**The Visitor:**

Angel stared gloomily out the window of his extravagant office. He could feel the deadly sun pounding against his face. Vampires weren't meant to feel the heat of the sun. Well, normally it fried them up if they got the slightest taste of it. It was nice every once and a while, but Angel found he didn't like it much anyway.

Looking down to the street he saw hundreds of people bundled up in their warmest winter clotheras they franticly did their last minute holiday shopping. It was four days until Christmas and, although it was almost dinnertime, the streets were full of the holiday shoppers. Angel tensed with the thought of thousands of people wandering around after dark on this night. The longest night.

He stood there at the window just staring, lost in thought, for a good five minutes. The sun started to sink down below the Los Angeles skyscrapers. Just as he started to think about moving, an oh-too-familiar voice sounded from somewhere near his desk.

"Well enjoying the afternoon sun, are we?"

Angel spun around to meet his life annoyance. There, sitting leisurely in Angels high backed chair, was Spike wearing his usual black. He glared at the blonde menace for a moment before walking around to throw him off the chair and into the floor.

Mumbling Spike lifted himself up and over to the beige couch. "Feeling touchy now, I see." Spike said leaning into the pillows. "Well no time for that Angel. We have a job to do. Or are you just going to sit back and let your men handle everything?"

"Get out of here, Spike." Angel snapped.

"Now come on Angel! You know what's going down tonight. All the demons come out to play, trouble everywhere, and maybe even a few World Devourers." Spike said happily ignoring Angel's altogether. "We could go out together, like old times. Except we'll be doing the good this time."

"I'm not going with anyone." Angel growled. He had planned on going out to wonder the streets alone. It made since to ask Gunn, or Wesley, or even Spike to come with him, but he didn't feel up to it. Tonight was the winter solstice, or longest night of the year. Tonight was the first winter solstice with out Cordelia.

"Well, whatever suits you, but I certainly won't go out alone." Spike said matter-of-factly as he fingered a hole in the arm of the couch. "Not tonight anyway. I guess I'll ask our hairless friend to accompany me."

Then Spike jumped up and headed towards the hallway, black coat trailing behind him. He stopped just short of the door to look back at Angel with his famous, or infamous, smirk.

Angel got back up and wondered over to the window. So many helpless citizens not caring about the danger that always lay ahead at this time of the year. With one final look at the city below, he left to retrieve his coat and get prepare his self for battle. Well, it was the longest night after all!

* * *

"Mr. Morris, I need you to look over this mailer before I send it out."

Bradley Cane rushed into his boss's office carrying a stack of very business-like letters. Each bared the heading: "Refinance Your House for the Holidays". A very cheesy line but effective nonetheless. He laid the stack on the desk and handed one of the letters to Mr. Morris.

Bradley glanced at his watch as Mr. Morris read through the paper. He had promised his wife that he'd be home in time for dinner since it was almost Christmas and she wanted it to be family time. At this rate he wouldn't be able to keep his promise. Mr. Morris was sure to find a mistake and make him redo it. The price you pay working in an elite loan office.

"You misspelled memo."

"What?" Bradley said as he was jerked out of his thoughts.

"You misspelled memo." Mr. Morris repeated in an exasperated tone. "Son, how do you misspell a word as simple as memo? You're going to reprint all these correctly. Bradley, you're wasting my money! How many copies did you make?"

"Five hundred." Bradley mumbled staring at the carpet.

"Throw them out then." He sighed picking up his brown overcoat. "I'm going to go home. Lock up for me Bradley. I'll see you in the morning."

Then there was Bradley, left to work well into the night supervising the copying of half a thousand mailers that were most likely to be thrown away with a load of junk mail. What a wonderful way to spend his night.

He called home and apologized for his mistake. Then he started on the nights work. It takes about half a minute to print one page. So that's about four hours. "Merry Christmas to me" he mumbled.

* * *

"Boss, there's someone here to see you."

"Not now Harmony, I'm about to leave. Tell them to come back tomorrow."

"But it's Buffy."

Angel froze and turned to face Harmony. He was laden down with an ax, a sword, three stakes, and was clearly getting ready to venture outside. His ax hand fell limp as he gaped at the secretary. "Are you serious?" He said barely above a whisper.

"Yeah, she's in your office with everyone. I thought Fred was about to faint in excitement about meeting her." Harmony replied as she got up from her desk and walked around to face him.

He turned to look through the frosted windows of his office. Sure enough he could see five fuzzy figures all grouped around the center of the room. He then turned his attention back to Harmony. "What do I do?"

Harmony looked thoroughly annoyed. "Oh so now you're asking my opinion?" She fumed folding her arms. "Yesterday you couldn't have cared less about what I thought, and now I'm suddenly important? You're on you own… Boss."

Angel stood torn between wanting to see Buffy and wanting to sprint off in the other direction. It was no secret that Buffy was angry with him. She believed him to have gone and made friends with the all evil, even though he swore they were using the Wolfram and Hart's resources for the greater good. The only thing that could make her come and see them now was something severely disastrous going down.

"Do you know what she's here for?" He asked dumbly.

"Well isn't it obvious?" Harmony sighed angrily. "It is the solstice, Angel! Get with the program!"

"Right… solstice… I should go in there." He said again dumbly.

"Ah, very good. Off you go." With that Harmony placed her hands on Angel's back and pushed him towards the door.

Angel stared wildly at the occupants of his office as Harmony shut the door with a snap. Spike was again lounging on the couch holding a peculiar weapon that looked like an over sized switchblade, Wesley was leaning against the wall his arms folded and a frown on his face, Gunn was, as he always did nowadays, wearing a dreary gray suit and holding that absurd briefcase, on the couch next to Spike was Fred, sitting cross-legged and holding a large book, and there, perched on the desk, was Buffy.

Angel and Buffy stared at each other for a few awkward moments. Then she jumped up and gave Angel a bone-breaking hug. Angel was no doubt dumbstruck at her actions. She was supposed to hated him now.

"I haven't seen you in so long!" she exclaimed stepping back to look at his face. When he didn't reply she continued to tell him about life in Sunnydale. "-And then Willow brought Faith back, which startled me since she was supposed to spend forever in prison, and she said that Cordy brought Angelus back. Oh yes, Willow and Faith say hi, and Xander sends his love."

"I'm sure he does." Angel replied apparently still astounded, but quickly recovering. "Not that I'm not thrilled to see you, but what's going on?"

"Yes, down to business. It's not good." She said lamely.

"Well we assumed that much." Spike huffed from the corner.

"Shut up Spike." Angel snapped.

"This is the worst solstice plot I've heard of in a while." She continued with a quick glare at Spike. "It seems that all the dark forces have decided to join together and destroy the world, like an army. As far as we know, all the demons and powers and vampires have agreed to help."

"The battle to end all battles." Wesley voiced with a swift look at Angel and Spike.

"Exactly." She sighed. "But I'm not sure how they plan to do this. We think the powers have some master plan to bring everything crashing down."

"And it's up to the champions and slayers to stop it." Angel said moving to sit down in his chair. "What now?"


	2. Bodies

Ok i couldn't help myself from adding the next chapter. I know its still the first day, but i finished it and had to post it. I actually have 2 more chapters done... but I wish for you to suffer. I never was good with patience. Anyway, you know the drill. Review if you enjoy.

**Disclaimer: **Nope I still own nothing. How awful this is. I think i may cry.

* * *

**Bodies:**

Bradley snatched his car keys off of his counter and continued out the office entry. Shivering slightly he rushed down the back alley to the company parking spaces. Mr. Morris insisted they parked a good two blocks away from the building. The closer he got to his truck, the more paranoid he became. Bradley got this feeling every time he'd walk to his car, the feeling of being closely watched that is to say.

_This is all Morris's fault! _He thought savagely. _If Morris had just done the letter himself like a smart person, he wouldn't have found any mistakes. One day he's going to get what's coming!_

An earsplitting crack brought Bradley out of his musings. He stumbled over a wooden crate near the dumpster and the concrete rushed up to meet him. Lying on his back he strained his ears to pick up the slightest noise of footsteps, but he heard nothing. Cursing his imagination, he slowly pulled himself up. His right temple was bleeding slightly, but nothing serious. So he continued making his way to the truck.

After only seven steps, Bradley tripped again. This time he wasted no time in rising up. He gave the box he'd fallen over a few good kicks, accomplishing nothing but pain in his big toe. He spun around to scamper to the truck, but he didn't even make it half way.

Bradley was lifted off his feet and slammed into the side of the bank. White lights popped I up to his eyes and the world began to spin. Steadying himself he looked up into the face of some contorted monster.

It had to be eight feet tall at least, pure white, like an albino. The monster's bald scalp was covered in a yellowish green slime that dripped all the way down to its feet and clawed hands. Each claw was about 5in long and a reddish brown color.

They looked at each other for a moment, Bradley quivering in fear and the creature chuckling aloud. Then it raised its face to the sky and let out a deafening cry. Then it was over, Bradley was gone.

* * *

"Buffy, call all your slayers. We're going to need help. Lorne, talk to those demons of yours and see if they can help. Fred, Wesley, go do whatever you do in that lab of yours. Gunn follow me."

Angel was spitting out orders left and right as he paced around the quaint office. Everyone sped off to do as they were told, leaving him with Gunn and the last person he wanted to be around. Angel then began towards the door followed closely by Gunn and a large lethal kukri.

"What do I do?" came Spike's aggravated voice from Angel's left. "You need me to help as well."

"Go help Buffy then. She'll love to have your company, I'm sure." He said not caring to look at Spike. They walked down the hall off through a door leading down to the security cameras.

"Fine, I'm going to go out and save the world myself while you sit back and watch everyone else do the bloody work!"

Angel turned around and grabbed the back of Spike's coat. "I changed my mind. You can come with us, but just don't say anything." He said through gritted teeth.

"Angel, where are we going anyway?" Gunn asked as they continued running down the stairs.

"To see a man about a demon."

* * *

"Hello this is Fred… I mean the Head… the science department… oh, what do you want?" Fred answered the phone in her rather lame fashion. She'd never really gotten used to the whole welcome message thing. That was more Harmony's style.

Wesley was sitting on one of the high stools pouring over a heap of ancient scrolls searching for some kind of clue on what was going on. He looked up at Fred's frowning face. Whatever was on the other end was not pleasing her.

"What is it?" he asked as she put the receiver down.

"That was Lorne. He said they're bringing us some bodies, about ten maybe more. He thinks they were all attacked by the same thing."

"Well maybe that will help us some." He reasoned. He stood and walked around the table to another set of scrolls. "I haven't found anything. I thought I might find something in the Shanshu prophecy because this sounds like the battle which they spoke of, but nothing was mentioned about an army."

"I think Spike and Angel believe it is though." Fred said as she sat down to look over the scrolls as well. "They'll fight to the death if the think there's a chance they can be human. What do we tell them?"

"Nothing."

"Wesley, we can't let them go on believing that this will save them. That's just wrong."

"But it they think it will save them, they may work harder."

"What if its true though? What if one of them will be turned into a mortal? I don't think they could handle it. I mean if they weren't vampires they'd be dead from all the fighting by now"

"Well we mustn't keep our hopes up. Angel and Spike are bound to be upset when nothing happens."

"I suppose that's true but-"

Fred was interrupted by the arrival of several men carrying bodies with the others carrying the heads. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Decapitated people weren't exactly her specialty. Behind the group was Knox, carrying a clipboard and a magnifying glass.

"Twelve of them." He said handing her the clipboard. "They all had their heads hacked off and thrown several feet. Nothing we haven't seen before, but there is something strange. They're all covered in sulfuric ash."

"Sulfur?" Fred asked. She bent down to take a closer look at the body nearest to them and jumped back immediately. "Ah, that smell! It's so strong. Why do they smell like sulfur?"

Wesley had gotten up to inspect them as well. He narrowed his eyes at heads. Then he pinched his nose and bent down to one of them. "Knox, get me a pair of tweezers." He ordered.

With a swift glance at Fred, he obediently went to the store cupboard. After a minute or two he returned with the tweezers and gloves.

"I think I've got a fragment of the weapon used to kill then." He said slowly. He began to pry at something in the neck of a lady with wispy brown hair. "It looks like a claw."

"What kind of claw?" Knox asked holding out a bag for Wesley to drop the brown nail in.

It was Fred who answered. "Looks like a werewolf maybe or a Drokken or a…" She paused for a second and gasped. "Wesley check if these people still have they're brains! This looks like a Hell-Hound's work!"

Wesley and Knox flew from body to body making sure they still had their wits inside. The first eight were fine. Then Knox let out a yelp. All the people grouped on the right were missing their heads. Not the actual head, even though that was gone as well, their minds.

"Why would a Hell-Hound only eat half of the brains?" Wesley asked as he slumped over in a chair and rubbed his eyes.

"They don't." Fred answered. "They only kill a few people a night, two maybe three, and they always eat it. There must be another thing killing the other people."

"You think it's a werewolf?" Knox asked. He had continued to scrutinize all they bodies. So far he found nothing new.

"Well, werewolves bite, and the people weren't bitten. They just lost they're head." Wesley snapped as though it was obvious.

Fred reached under her desk and pulled out the book she had earlier and began to ruffle the pages.

"Hey Mr.Wyndam-Pryce, come look at this will you?"

Wesley got up and followed Knox to a man in a stiff business suit. He took the magnifying glass from him and looked into the spot Knox indicated, his ear. His face became puzzled for a moment then he stood up and spun around to Fred.

"Call Angel! We've got Howlers!"


	3. Evil Empire

New chapter, obviously. Not quite sure where the story's going. We'll just wait and see. You know the drill by now I suppose.

**Disclaimer:** Once again i own nothing, not even a box to store socks in. How depressing.

**Evil Empire:**

Buffy half walked half sprinted up the stairs towards the lab. Or in the direction she thought it was. How could anyone find they're way around here? There had to be over 20 floors.

She stopped dead and sighed. She'd gotten herself lost again. There was nothing to indicate where she was. Not a sign point her in the right way. Nor was there anyone she was willing to ask for help.

"I must have walked into the Hi-I'm-a-Demon-and-Have-no-Shame corridor." She said under her breath. Deciding it would be wise to go downstairs and ask Harmony where to go, she turned around to head back down the stairs and she ran straight into Lorne.

"Buffykins!" He said happily, giving her a hug. "You look lost. Where ya' heading?"

"I was looking for the science lab," she said smiling. "I must have taken a wrong turn. Spike never was good with directions."

"Well you went two floors too many. We're in my wing, the interesting and entertaining side of this boring old law firm." Lorne took her arm and began to lead her down the steps.

"Nice to see you're happy here. Doing what you love the most."

"Well I had fun running the bar, but this is certainly more exciting. The talent I've seen! Amazing."

"I'm sure it's fascinating." She peered apprehensively at some demon with four or five green horns coming out of his head. "The people, er, demons must be a sight as well."

"Buffy, we really are doing good here. We saved an entire school from a bomb planted in some poor kids stomach a few months ago, and Spike became solid again, oh and you missed the good fun. Some guy turned Angelcakes into a puppet. You know like the ones on the wee kiddie shows."

"Well I am sorry I missed that." She said laughing.

* * *

"No, stop please! I'll talk! I'll talk!"

Gunn and Spike stood at the bar of some musty downtown pub and watched Angel bash some Mimic demon's head into the wall. They had dealt with mimic demons before. They took the form of something ordinary, like a bush or mailbox, and caused riots to break out. When in normal form they kind of looked like oversized potatoes.

Angel stopped beating the demon's head in and took a step back. "Tell us what you know of this all evil army."

"Ok," it said, covering its head in case Angel decided to continue beating him. "You need to understand that I'm only a common demon, and the big guys don't tell us little guys much. So, you can't be mad at me for not knowing much."

"How about you tell us what you know," Spike said coolly. "And I wont rip you're wee little legs off. How's that sound?"

"OK! There's this big guy, has to be four hundred pounds or more, his name's Balthazar."

"Balthazar!" Angel snapped. " I thought we killed him already!"

"Musta' found a loop hole or something." Gunn said, laying his kukri down on the counter. "So what's this demon planning to do?"

The mimic demon look as though he wasn't going to say anything else, but Spike picked Gunn's knife up and pointed it towards his scrawny legs, so it decided to spill.

"He's got all these demonic friends, see, my leader being one of them. I know he's got connections with The Sisterhood of the Jhe, the werewolves, the vampires" he gave Angel and Spike a searching look before continuing, " A few Eyghon's, he's even got a horde of zombies. Now I'm not sure abo-"

The demon was interrupted by Angel's cell phone. Muttering to himself, he reached into his pocket to retrieve it. Of course, it was from Fred.

"What's going on down there?" He asked.

"Angel!" Fred's desperate voice came through the phone rather loudly, almost like she was yelling. She was clearly about to loose her head. "We got a load of people in here, dead of course, all missing their heads!"

"Do you know what happened to them?" Angel asked. With every moment of Fred's explanation, his already vampire pale face became paler with a slight tinge of green.

Once he'd hung up he strode over to the demon and slammed him into a table booth. "Why didn't you tell us?" he roared over the potatoes small whimpers. "Don't tell me you didn't know about the Howlers!"

"Howlers? " Spike asked. "No I bloody well don't do Howlers. Those things are brutal shriek happy monsters!"

"What's a Howler?" came Gunn. Of course Gunn had never heard of them. All the Law crammed into his head didn't contain anything about the demons said to be extinct.

Angel sank onto a bar stool, keeping one eye on their hostage. "A Howler's kinda like a mutant dog. Its pure white, not like snow white, like transparent. If you get close enough you can see all its organs. They're covered in a greenish colored slime, more like goo, that smells like sulfur and ash. The funny thing about these Howlers is that they seem to be beheading their victims. I never knew one to do that. But anyway, the Howler clan supposedly died out a century ago."

"Well then how do we know it's a bloody Howler?" Spike asked. "It could be the… Head-Chopping-Off demon or something."

"No it's definitely a Howler." Angel sighed. "Wesley said that half the victims had their ear drums busted out."

"Ear drums?" Gunn said bewildered. "That thing gets your hearing as well?"

"Yeah, it's got a blood chilling shriek that will cause you permanent deafness. Well unless you're already dead, then your ears just throb for a week or two."

"So you've heard it before? Both of you?"

"It's not a bloody pleasant sound!" Spike told him with a pained look on his face. "I'll never forget that one."

"But Wesley seems to think that the Howlers have joined up with the Hell-Hounds." Angel continued. "Fred said that the other half of the people have got their brain sucked out."

"So this Balthazar," Gunn said now looking at the half forgotten mimic demon, "does he have the power to resurrect or something?"

* * *

**Sorry its so short. I've been wallowing in self pity. GET OFF MY CASE! Reviews would be nice.**


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